mmmGoodies

Today I am super excited to share a post that has been in the works for months, but on my mind for even longer. When I was pregnant with Hudson, I first met Brandon on my lunch break when he parked his frozen custard truck outside. I didn't eat Goodies frozen custard until I was back at my desk, but I immediately thought, I should blog about this! Fast forward to this summer, we showed up at the birthday party of two sweet little friends and what do you know, it was a street party with Goodies Frozen Custard & Treats dishing up desert! We talked a ton, and thankfully our friend and photographer Jake snapped a few pictures. Thanks Jake.

Now that I have reconnected with Brandon, I am thrilled to bring you his story. And for all of you in DC, don't forget to follow Goodies on social media and learn more about renting the truck for your next birthday party or work event.

How did you get started with Goodies?
I fell in love with frozen custard in 1996 when I moved from California to Wisconsin. Its cliche to say this, but it was love at first sight. I knew I wanted to be in the frozen dessert industry, I just didn't know how. Fast forward fifteen years, I was working in corporate america in New York City for a major hiphop magazine. It was time for a departure and I knew I was done with corporate life. The timing was finally right.

Why frozen custard rather than ice cream or yogurt? What's the difference?
Frozen custard has egg yolk. Frozen custard is the creme de la creme of frozen desserts. Its a more legit product, richer, thicker, and creamier. It has minimal air. Air makes the product expand, think of a marshmallow, if you puff it up with air, it gets bigger, but it is still the same amount of product. It has the beautiful texture of soft serve, but the decadence of a premium brand.

We make our custard fresh on site every single day in small batches.

Where do you source your ingredients?
Our ingredients are primarily sourced from the mid-atlantic, as local as possible. Our dairy farm is based in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Our fruit comes from a variety of places, Miller Farms, the National Harbor farmers market, and Eastern Market. We source our vanilla from a f107 year old vanilla farmer, a family business. It is cold extracted vanilla, the best in the world. Think of a shot of espresso. It is as pure as you can get. Vanilla has over 200 flavor characteristics, because ours is cold pressed, not heated, you get the full complexity of the flavor.

Speaking of flavors, what are your fan favorites? And how about your personal favorites?
Day to day, we only make vanilla bean frozen custard, on occasion we make a pumpkin pie or chocolate. But we stick to the perfected base of vanilla bean. We are purists. When we add fresh ingredients, the custard takes on that flavor. We use our ingredients to highlight the vanilla. Instead of masking our base with lots of flavors.
We have 4 signature items on our menu but the base for all of them is our vanilla custard:

Route 66 Vanilla Bean Float - using our root beer on tap

Jukebox Cookies and Cream

Turtle Pecan Boogie Woogie with pecans from our farmer in Georgia

Jitterbug Peanut Butter Shake

Everything is blended on demand to ensure the freshness.

I hear you have a special name for your truck, can you tell us more about that?
Our truck is named GiGi. The gentleman who found the truck in his Arizona junk yard named the truck GiGi -- we've kept the name to pay homage to his hard work finding this beauty.

What was the process like restoring GiGi?
It's like renovating an old building, you gut it, take it down to the bare bones. But the end goal was always at the forefront of my mind. You know what it wants to look like, so you work the pieces to get there.

Do you only have one truck?
That's the cool thing, I actually have another truck. His name is Rudy, his the little brother of GiGi -- a little patchy but big personality like Rudy from the Crosby Show.

Tell us more about the trucks. (can you tell I am a boy mom here?)
GiGi and Rudy are MetroVans made by International Harvester. Production of this round body style ran from 1938-1965. They actually have three body styles: a shorty which is Rudy, the medium size which is GiGi, our truck that is currently traveling curbside, and a large model which we don't have one yet, maybe some day in the future. The large body size is a dualie with two rear wheels.

Speaking of big personality, you've got quite the sock collection!
I love color and design, so you are going to see me in argyle or polkadots -- color communicates a lot about a person, full of life and energetic like my personality and ultimately company. My socks are an extension of me.

What is the one thing you want everyone in DC to know about Goodies?
Without you there is no us. We are a small business with high standards, which means we want to build relationships with each customer.

Where can we find you?
GiGi is curb side -- we tweet her location every day @GoodiesDC
We have a soda bar in National Harbor open daily from 12-7

And we met at a birthday party, how can we sign up for that goodness?
GiGi is available for catering and special events. Shoot an email to: info@mmmgoodies.com

They are about to launch a kickstarter campaign for Rudy. Be on the lookout via their social media.

A word about hashtags. If you follow Goodies on social media, before long you will see the hashtag #GodisCEO Brandon uses this hashtag because he firmly believes without praying, he wouldn't be where he is today. At the end of the day, Brandon says his faith and prayer has gotten him to here. Without that part of his life, Goodies wouldn't be the company it has become. Brandon uses this hashtag to give glory to where it needs to be. Everyone has their own background, but we can bring those together to do God's work.